Saudi Arabia has agreed to allow US citizen Saad Almadi to return home to Florida, five months ahead of the scheduled lifting of travel restrictions and a day after Saudi crown prince and prime minister Mohammed bin Salman met Donald Trump at the White House.
Almadi, 75, was sentenced to 19 years of incarceration in the kingdom in 2021 after he wrote 14 tweets critical of the Riyadh government. Two years later, the charges were reduced to so-called “cyber crimes” and he was sentenced to a 30-year ban on leaving Saudi Arabia.
The announcement that Almadi, a dual citizen and retired engineer who had lived in the US since the 1970s, would be free to leave the country came after the US president delivered a speech touting US-Saudi ties, including arms sales and investment deals, during a second day of public events in Washington.
“Our family is overjoyed that, after four long years, our father, Saad Almadi, is finally on his way home to the United States!” the Almadi family said in a statement.
“This day would not have been possible without President Donald Trump and the tireless efforts of his administration. We are deeply grateful to Dr Sebastian Gorka and the team at the national security council, as well as everyone at the state department,” it added.
The statement by Almadi’s son, Ibrahim Almadi, also thanked various non-profit organizations, including the James Foley Fund and Hostages America, and House speaker Mike Johnson for supporting the elder Almadi’s cause. He later posted on X that his father was on his way to the US.
TVNL Comment: Why has Trump ignored the pleas to release the 16 year old American boy accused of throwing a rock to protecct his home from settler attacks in the West Bank?
President Donald Trump signed legislation Wednesday night directing the Justice Department to release all files from the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, completing a dramatic reversal after fighting the proposal just last week.
The U.N. Security Council has backed the United States’ ambitious plan for the future of the Gaza Strip. How and when it will be carried out remain largely unknown.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hailed the move as "historic", after signing the letter of intent with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron at an air base near Paris.
Genocide is a process, not an event. When genocide happens, its roots, and the conditions that allowed it, often become visible only in retrospect. If those conditions remain unchanged and there is no accountability, there’s every reason to believe the violence will return, perhaps even worse, especially if it was never fully halted. This is exactly what we are seeing in the case of Gaza. Demanding accountability from Israeli leaders isn’t just about the past, it’s the only way to challenge a system designed to repeat such violence.
The World Health Organization has said its workforce will shrink by nearly a quarter – or over 2,000 jobs – by the middle of next year as it seeks to implement reforms after its top donor, the United States, announced its departure.
